In the previous paragraph, considerations were put forward on the attractiveness of Treviso as a whole for people operating in the economic sector.
The main factors – context and sectoral structure – characteristic to the area of Treviso were briefly summed up. These can supply the source of appeal both for local dealers to continue operating and investing in the province, and for outside traders who may wish to make contact with local entities in terms of exchanges, cooperation or actual investments in the province. To this effect, the focus was put on the international openness of Treviso economic system, taking its foreign trade balance as the basis for examination, thus showing that its state and composition provide the ground for more business opportunities, considering that:
developing exports implies the production of profitable goods with an excellent price/quality ratio;
limited imports demonstrate that local consumer capacity – all other factors being equal – is probably not fully satisfied by inhabitants.
All this suggests that dealers inside and outside this area can find valid motives for operating here or establishing profitable relationships with good prospects of development.
The same appeal applies more generally to human resources, seen as labour resources in the broadest sense: employees, self-employed and freelancers, or entrepreneurs.
Indeed, where business opportunities are possible, even work at every level follows the same direction because the added value produced by the opportunities benefits those who participate in the achievement (capital and labour). Therefore, also workers, within their specific professionalism, should take more into account the strong factors of the area of Treviso, already mentioned in the previous articles.
By examining the current situation, it appears significant that the employment and unemployment rates in the province are already quite satisfying. On the other hand, the prospect of many new opportunities might induce (and, partly, it already does) the influx of people from other Italian regions or from abroad: this fact has increased the resident population and, therefore, a higher number of workers is required to keep both the employment and unemployment rates unchanged. In other words, people are already attracted by work, even though the potential is much higher and this has brought a satisfactory level of employment, accompanied by the presence of a large mass of human resources which, in the current society of knowledge, allows the exchange of know-how and expertise necessary to create new knowledge, thus opportunities for development.
It should be underlined that the bulk of immigration comes from developing countries, which can rarely contribute to significantly rising the level of know-how and innovation of the production system. Nevertheless, it is also certain that the presence of those workers in simple and general tasks allows others to concentrate on more skilled tasks, able to satisfy the most advanced and innovative development needs.
The trouble, just in case, should be focused precisely on current human resources: are they sufficient in quantity and quality to improve the development of present economic activities? Are they able to make use of all those favourable opportunities – already briefly described – offered by Treviso economic system?
In point of fact, because the provincial framework prefers traditional production activities, the local worker’s average professional level is not high enough to face future challenges of the most advanced production, even if we must consider that:
the province boasts significant levels of excellence;
practical innovation is continuous ad widespread: this allows to recover at least part of the benefits produced by the most radical innovations;
new generations have more extensive and updated education as well as vocational training;
applying customer-oriented approach and limiting the remuneration margins of production factors still allow good market competitiveness, particularly at an international level.
In this way, the problem is reduced to a need for the following two actions:
accelerating the degree of qualification of existing resources;
allowing professionalism and key talents from “outside” to enter the local market in order to improve and enhance the internal resources described above.
To achieve the first aim, as well as exploiting benefits arising from the second proposal, more effort is needed at different working levels:
in increasing the level of knowledge;
in learning how to exploit it in a more systematic and rational way;
more determination in seizing future opportunities that require further innovation, and a wider view of “business”.
On the other hand, the second aim requires new advanced skills and talents able to stimulate not much the progress of knowledge in general, but rather the development of specific and practical know-how that could help the production system to reach wider horizons.
Therefore, the improvement and growth of existing, internal human resources is possible, but the economic system should also rely more and more on external resources establishing in Treviso and working in present and future activities.
Actually, there already exist appealing factors for outside professionals and talented workers to establish in Treviso, that is, the context and sectoral factors – already mentioned in previous paragraphs – that indicate future extensive development and new opportunities in Treviso economic system.
